He is the energizer envoy, a nonstop negotiator who can outflank and outflatter, outbluff and outbully all the other players in the room.

Now Richard C. Holbrooke is back -- full time -- as the chief American representative at the United Nations, a job that brings with it cabinet rank and a seat on the National Security Council.

Mr. Holbrooke, who negotiated the Bosnia peace agreement in 1995 and has carried out diplomatic peacemaking missions to Cyprus and Kosovo province in Serbia since then, was praised effusively today by President Clinton.

''His remarkable diplomacy in Bosnia helped to stop the bloodshed, and at the talks in Dayton the force of his determination was the key to securing peace, restoring hope and saving lives,'' Mr. Clinton said in announcing the appointment.

Mr. Holbrooke may have brought a fragile peace to Bosnia and Herzegovina, but his detractors point out that a major goal of American policy -- a viable and united Bosnian state -- remains unfulfilled. Hundreds of thousands of refugees have not returned home, and Bosnia's Croats, Muslims and Serbs refuse to be stitched into a republic.

To move the Bosnian Serbs toward an armistice -- but to avoid having to negotiate with them directly -- Mr. Holbrooke persuaded Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian leader, to act as their negotiator and representative.

This dependence on Mr. Milosevic to deliver the Bosnian Serbs opened Mr. Holbrooke to intense criticism that he gave away too much to the man who inspired the Bosnian war, a man who many say should have been indicted as a war criminal, a man whose forces are today conducting a violent campaign against ethnic Albanian rebels in Kosovo.

Today, at the National Press Club, Mr. Holbrooke defended himself, saying, ''Whether one likes it or not, as long as Milosevic is in that job, one's going to negotiate with him.''

In accepting the United Nations job -- his third stint in Government -- Mr. Holbrooke choked back tears as he described a lifelong love for the United Nations that was instilled in him as an 8-year-old child visiting the Secretariat with his parents.

''These buildings, my father said, would become the most important in the world. They would prevent future wars,'' Mr. Holbrooke said, adding that he accepted the job ''with the greatest humility and pride.''

Mr. Holbrooke, who has been a vice chairman of the investment banking firm Credit Suisse First Boston for more than two years, was a front-runner for Secretary of State in the second Clinton term. He was even interviewed for the post by Mr. Clinton, before the President decided on Madeleine K. Albright.

Asked in 1996 whether he wanted to be Secretary of State, he did not say no, just that, ''Averell Harriman once said, 'Never turn down a job you haven't been offered.' '' As for the United Nations post, he said at the time, ''I have never expressed any interest in the U.N. job.''

That job was given to Bill Richardson, who was made Secretary of Energy today. [Man in the News, page A26.] This time, Mr. Holbrooke was offered the United Nations post -- and immediately accepted.

Mr. Holbrooke's style has been described as both exceedingly charming and brutally tough. He survives on a few hours of sleep a night, and can carry on two or three telephone conversations and monitor television at the same time.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

''Raging Bull'' is how his enemies in the Administration nicknamed him during the Bosnia talks.

But Sir John Westin, Britain's chief delegate to the United Nations, described him today as ''one of the life forces in the world of foreign-policy professionals.'' And Mr. Holbrooke's friends -- ruthlessly loyal -- defend his style of operating.

''During the Bosnia talks, some of the Europeans called him a bully,'' said Leslie Gelb, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, who has known Mr. Holbrooke for more than 30 years. ''I call what he did getting things done.''

Mr. Holbrooke will be a welcome addition to Mr. Clinton's inner national security circle, Mr. Gelb added, because ''having Dick at a table creates the kind of sparks that would help them as a team to focus.''

Mr. Holbrooke himself acknowledges that he may bruise feelings in his drive to get things done. ''It's the outcome that matters, not the process,'' he said in a telephone interview today. ''If you are outcome-driven, you have to break some crockery. I try to do better as time goes along.''

Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke was born on April 24, 1941, in New York City, the elder of two sons of Dan Holbrooke, a doctor, and Trudi Moos, the daughter of a leather exporter in Germany. Both his parents, who are Jewish, fled the Nazis in the 1930's. Mr. Holbrooke's father, who was brought up in Russia, changed his name to Holbrooke when he arrived in the United States. Mr. Holbrooke's mother used to take Richard to Quaker meetings on Sundays.

He attended Scarsdale High School in suburban New York, where his closest friend was David Rusk, the son of the late Secretary of State, Dean Rusk.

Mr. Holbrooke joined the Foreign Service in 1962 after graduating from Brown University and was sent to Vietnam. In May 1968, he was sent to Paris as a member of the delegation led by W. Averell Harriman to embark on the first United States negotiations with the Vietcong.

Four years later Mr. Holbrooke left Government to become editor of Foreign Policy Quarterly. But after Jimmy Carter was elected President, Mr. Holbrooke came back to Government to became Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, the youngest person ever to be an Assistant Secretary.

From 1985 until he was named Ambassador to Germany by Mr. Clinton in 1993, he was managing director of the New York investment firm Lehman Brothers. A year later he was recalled to Washington to become Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs, a rank he had held almost two decades earlier.

But in the late summer of 1995, with Secretary of State Warren Christopher's blessing, Mr. Holbrooke was handed the most sensitive and high-profile mission of his diplomatic career: to promote a peace plan for Bosnia.

Mr. Holbrooke lives with his third wife, the author Kati Marton, and her two children, Elizabeth Marton Jennings, 18, and Christopher Marton Jennings, 15, at one of Central Park West's best addresses. His two sons, David, 32, and Anthony, 28, are both television producers.

The envoy to be said his family plans to remain in their apartment. The official residence that comes with the posting to the United Nations -- a $27,000-a-month suite atop the Waldorf Towers -- will be used for official functions.

Correction: June 22, 1998

A Man in the News article on Friday about Richard C. Holbrooke, who was appointed United Nations delegate, misspelled the surname of Britain's delegate. He is Sir John Weston, not Westin.

We are continually improving the quality of our text archives. Please send feedback, error reports,
and suggestions to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.

A version of this article appears in print on June 19, 1998, on Page A00004 of the National edition with the headline: Man in the News -- Richard C. Holbrooke; A Tough Man (Some Say Brutal) for a Tough Job. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe